May 31, 2007

Bush pounds chest "I am the President!!!" to stunned friends

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny.

So consider these scenes from March 2004, described by two former top Justice officials who, like other ex-officials interviewed by NEWSWEEK, did not wish to be identified discussing sensitive internal matters. Attorney General John Ashcroft is really sick. About to give a press conference in Virginia, he is stricken with pain so severe he has to lie down on the floor. Taken to the hospital for an emergency gallbladder operation, he hallucinates under medication as he lies, near death, in intensive care. On the night after his operation, he has two visitors: White House chief of staff Andrew Card and presidential counsel Alberto Gonzales. As described in public testimony, they want Ashcroft to sign a document authorizing the government's top-secret eavesdropping program to go on. The attorney general, who thinks the program is illegal, refuses.Back at the Justice Department, there is an equally extraordinary scene. Appalled by the White House's heavy-handed attempt to coerce the gravely ill attorney general, virtually the entire top leadership of the Justice Department is threatening to resign. The group includes the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum and the chief of the Criminal Division, Chris Wray. Some of them gather in the conference room of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who describes Ashcroft's bravely turning away the president's men from his hospital bed. The mood that night in the conference room was tense—and sober. "This was a showdown," says a former senior Justice Department official who was there. "Everybody understood the choice they were making and the gravity of the situation. Everybody knew what the stakes were." A different source estimated that as many as 30 top DOJ officials would have resigned.

Crooks and Liars - Plame was a Covert Agent

t's official. Valerie Plame was a covert agent at the time her name was leaked by Novak. Will Victoria Toensing issue an apology? And Fred Hiatt should follow her lead.
An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003…read on

FDL: Ex. Order 12958 — Hayden's approval of Waxman's statement that Ms. Wilson's status was classified, that she was a covert agent protected under the aforementioned Executive Order…UPDATE: Larry Johnson: How about them Apples Vicky Toensing? Here's Valerie's statement to Waxman:

"While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence."

"I loved my career, because I love my country. I was proud of the serious responsibilities entrusted to me as a CIA covert operations officer. And I was dedicated to this work."

"It was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit that everyone knew where I worked. But all of my efforts on behalf of the national security of the United States, all of my training, all the value of my years of service, were abruptly ended when my name and identity were exposed irresponsibly."

WNBC catches Giuliani getting 'tripped up' by 9/11 activist

On Tuesday, members of a 911 truth activist group confronted former Mayor Rudy Giuliani at a New York fundraiser about the fall of the World Trade Center.

"How come people in the buildings weren't notified?" asked one member of the group. "And how can you sleep at night?"

Giuliani's politely-phrased response, caught by WNBC newscameras filming the event, was "I didn't know that the towers were going to collapse."

That response contradicts remarks the former New York City mayor made about being warned about the collapse during a phone interview with onetime ABC anchor Peter Jennings on September 11, 2001, as shown in a transcript WNBC obtained from the Giuliani 2008 campaign.

Giuliani told Jennings, "I--I went down to the scene and we set up headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the police commissioner, the fire commissioner, the head of emergency management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit and got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us."

AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: Conyers Comes Out For Impeachment

"Detroit Congressman John Conyers says he supports a national effort calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. But he stopped short today of pledging to take action to back it. The veteran democratic [sic] lawmaker chairs the House Judiciary Committee, which would lead any impeachment hearings. Conyers did say that he encourages nationwide efforts to build support for impeaching Bush."

Ron Paul: Legalize Hemp in Arizona, Iowa [ronpaul08.blog-city.com]

Sources close to the campaign of presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Tex) said that the congressman would probably renew his call for the legalization of industrial marijuana - “hemp” in both Iowa and Arizona. A call to legalize hemp would be attractive to farmers. This stance, combined with anti-war position, might make Ron Paul attractive to a large slice of GOP voters not enamored with many traditional “conservative” positions. Iowa and Arizona’s farming communities could well be in favor of the legalization of an additional cash crop such as hemp. There is a large difference between industrial hemp - which contains little of the active ingredient that gets users “high - and marijuana that is actively cultivated for illegal drug use.

Analysis Of New Phony Al-CIAda Video

Most of the so called Al-Qaeda tapes have been traced back to western intelligence agencies. This is especially true with the post 9/11 video tapes. One of the more infamous examples is the fat Bin Laden video tape which the U.S. government claimed was proof of Bin Laden admitting that he masterminded the 9/11 attacks. However, even the most basic of video analysis revealed that the person in the video that the U.S. government claimed was Bin Laden was definitely not. Bin Laden’s nose is much bigger than previous Bin Laden tapes, he is seen writing with his right hand even though the FBI lists him as left handed and voice print analysis of the tape compared to previous Bin Laden tapes concluded that the individual in the fat Bin Laden tape was definitely not Bin Laden.

PHOTOS: The $592 Million U.S. Embassy In Iraq

PHOTOS: The $592 Million U.S. Embassy In Iraq
Construction of the U.S. embassy in Iraq, set to open in September, is projected to cost $592 million, with a staff of 1,000 people and operating costs totaling $1.2 billion a year. It will be a 104-acre complex, which is the size of approximately 80 football fields. On May 10, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) criticized the ballooning size and cost of the embassy in a hearing with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:
Now, having said over and over again that we don’t want to be seen as an occupying force in Iraq, we’re building the largest embassy that we have — probably the largest in the world — in Baghdad. And it just seems to grow and grow and grow. … We agree that we should focus our aid locally not in Baghdad, but we have 1,000 Americans at the embassy in Baghdad. You add the contractors and the local staff it comes to 4,000.
The architectural firm designing the embassy, Berger Define Yaeger, has posted the designs for the colossus on its website. Some previews of the compound’s planned swimming pool and tennis courts:

The complex “will include two office buildings, one of them designed for future use as a school, six apartment buildings, a gym, a pool, a food court and its own power generation and water-treatment plants.”
The U.S. embassy is likely to create even greater Iraqi resentment toward the U.S. occupation. While Americans will be living in posh quarters, the citizens of Baghdad are forced to survive with just 5.6 hours of electricity a day. Baghdad was also recently rated the world’s worst city in which to live.

UPDATE: The residence of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq will be 16,000 square feet. The deputy chief of mission in Iraq will have a “cozy cottage” measuring 9,500 square feet.

Less Than 0.01% Of Homeland Security Cases Are Terrorism Related

A
report issued Sunday by independent research group
The Transactional Records Action Clearinghouse (TRAC)
found that in the last three years there have only been 12 charges
of terrorism out of 814,073 cases

Top Rove aide, implicated in Attorneys firings, clears out office

A top aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove has 'cleared out her office,' according to a report in Monday's Washington Post. Sara Taylor, Rove's top lieutenant, has seen her name brought up in recent months in Congressional hearings relating to the firing of 8 US Attorneys.

"Taylor, 32, was one of the first people put on the payroll of the Bush campaign," writes Michael Fletcher in the new 'At the White House' column. "Taylor cleared out her office early last week. She plans to take her skills to the private sector."

Taylor is described by Fletcher as skilled in 'microtargeting,' the practice of identifying voting constituencies at their most elemental levels. She has also come up as a potential target for a subpoena from the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, as RAW STORY has earlier reported.

The White House political strategist was first identified as playing a role in the removal of US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas H.E. 'Bud' Cummins during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with D. Kyle Sampson, the former Chief of Staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Taylor was also identified by Monica Goodling, Gonzales's former White House Liaison. After Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) asked Goodling what Karl Rove knew about the firing of the US Attorneys, she suggested Taylor had signed off on the plan.

"There was an e-mail that Mr. Sampson forwarded to me, I think, on December 4, if I'm remembering correctly, that said that it had been circulated to different offices within the White House and that they had all signed off," Goodling answered. "I think it said that White House political had signed off. Political is actually headed by Sara Taylor but does report to Mr. Rove, so I don't know for sure."

In April, Taylor was threatened with the possibility of facing a subpoena.

"The Committee is expected to vote on [the authorization of a subpoena] next week for Sara M. Taylor, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Political Affairs," read an April 12 press release from Senator Patrick leahy (D-VT), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.